Tracing evolution of hand crochet in Xinzhuang
30 Years On
In 1992, a new Minhang District appeared in Shanghai through a combination of the old district and Shanghai County. Vast changes have taken place as the district went through its urbanization process. As an artery that connects Minhang with downtown Shanghai, Humin Road, with its patriotic origin, helps the district adapt to urban prosperity. The district also sticks to traditional and unique elements. Use this column as a guide to explore Minhang, its changes and what remains the same by tracing along Humin Road.
A simple flower pattern of Xinzhuang crocheting work
A lace loom produces standard patterns, but hand crochet enables a craftsman to make creations, said Lin Hua, a Minhang District intangible cultural inheritor of Xinzhuang crochet.
Crochet is now a Shanghai intangible cultural heritage. Using a crochet hook made of bamboo, bones or stainless steel, along with cotton, linen, silk or woolen yarn, the craftsmen, relying on their deft hands and smart ideas, create patterns with marvelous forms and countless changes.
Minhang's Xinzhuang Town, which was connected to Humin Road in 1959, turned into a place frequented by lace merchants to distribute raw materials and collect finished goods, after the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway opened in 1909 and set up a station there.
This story traces the origin of Xinzhuang crochet, the peak of its development, to the late 20th century when this local livelihood tiptoed into an industrialized age and the budding of the craft as an intangible cultural heritage in the 21st century.
Vases donned in nets of crochet work
The meeting of East and West
Shanghai's weaving and knitting experience dates back about 6,000 years when the Songze people, the ancestors of Shanghai residents, showed their talent in weaving fishnets. Around the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, women in Shanghai and the surrounding area started to grind scale beams, hairpins and chopsticks into hook needles and made daily necessities like snoods, hats and bags out of cotton threads.
Meanwhile in the West, the Renaissance drove the popularity of lace production in European countries. Aristocratic males widely used laces to decorate their cuffs, collars and sock tops.
John Levers, an Englishman from Nottingham, invented the Leavers machine (a lacemaking machine) in 1813. As lace looms became almost functionally perfect after 1840, handmade lace production in Europe started to shift toward China, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Paraguay and Brazil.
The Shanghai Society of Jesuits stationed in Tushanwan in the Xujiahui area in 1847. As they built Xujiahui Cathedral in 1869, the Jesuits recruited orphan girls into their embroidery, tailoring and lacing workshops to give them a livelihood. The laces they produced were primarily exported to European countries.
The craft was introduced to Minhang via the Nanzhang Cathedral in Xinzhuang Town and Qibao Cathedral in Qibao Town.
The lacing craft from Europe fused well with Shanghai traditional knitting and weaving skills. Local women came up with an important innovation by replacing bobbins with hook needles to simplify the process and enrich the patterns. Merchants sought profits from their works and propelled rapid development of the contemporary Shanghai lacing industry. By 1919, the export value of Shanghai's lace products accounted for three quarters of the national total.
Lin Hua's crossover creations merge Xinzhuang crochet and Tibetan garments.
More than a livelihood
To succeed in a fashion-conscious overseas market, constant lace-design innovation was a must. Merchants recruited young and middle-aged women who were able to not only crochet but also read sample patterns and even create patterns.
Driven by a flourishing market, many crochet makers who could innovate patterns emerged in Xinzhuang, and business in the area flourished. Xinzhuang crochet therefore earned its name.
The founding of the Xinzhuang Lace Factory in 1979 and the relocation of the Shanghai Handicraft Factory to Xinzhuang in 1965 boosted the handicraft. The categories of goods multiplied, from a simple flower pattern and lace tapes to mittens, bags, hats, carpets, bedspreads and costumes.
In the 1980s, the business expanded to cover other areas in Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, with nearly 100 raw material distribution sites.
In Xinzhuang and neighboring areas, the number of people engaged in crochet production reached 100,000, and goods were exported to more than 30 countries.
Qiao Yiyi (1958-2006), one of the top 10 Chinese fashion designers in 1998 and 1999, chose a life of being tightly bound to Xinzhuang crochet.
Her interest in crochet started when her father was a primary school teacher in Xinzhuang.
She was later a technician in the Shanghai Handicraft Factory and respected as a crochet master at the age of 30. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Qiao studied fashion design at a fashion institute in Hong Kong, which enabled her, when the handicraft factory later dissolved, to set up her own crochet-related design companies.
In the early 1990s when people's aesthetics sharpened and many crochet firms went out of business, Qiao instilled modern painting and sculpture into traditional handicraft, an innovation that consumers embraced. Her book "300 Cases on Shanghai Crochet Art," published in February 1990, sold 100,000 copies during its first printing.
Qiao died at the age of 48 from illness.
Crochet work by Jin Longhua features Vincent van Gogh's painting "Starry Night."
Crochet work by Sun Yingdi features Claude Monet's painting "Water Lilies."
Crochet work by Mao Jingfang features Vincent van Gogh's painting "Road with Cypress and Star."
The rise of a cultural item
In the late 20th century, machinery and computerization put the local hand-crochet industry on a downward slide.
The Xinzhuang Lace Factory underwent structure reform in 1995, with its lace production business shrinking and finally dying out. In the meanwhile, the Shanghai Handicraft Factory gradually lost its talent and edge.
Urban and rural residents in Xinzhuang bid farewell to a passing livelihood, yet they did not panic.
The Shanghai suburbs have rapidly urbanized in the 21st century, and the majority of Xinzhuang residents no longer rely on crocheting laces to make a living.
Starting in 2006, Xinzhuang launched a continual training program for cultural inheritors. In 2007, crochet was listed among Shanghai's first batch of intangible cultural heritage items.
Lin, who learned crochet skills from her mother and grandmother, had a chance to study under Jin Longhua, a city-level crochet inheritor, and work with other inheritors, including Mao Jingfang, Zhu Yueqin and Sun Yingdi.
They promoted the cultural item through making crochet umbrellas, qipao (a traditional Chinese one-piece dress), craftworks and tapestries, and held cross-country exchanges in China and abroad.
"Crocheting differs from weaving and embroidery in that a work can be either plain or three-dimensional," said Lin. "People carry a piece of thread with a hook needle, whirl a needle, twist or double-twist a thread or release some thread. There are more than 40 basic stitches, 74 traditional patterns and eight basic combinations."
In October 2021, a crossover intangible culture fashion exhibition featuring Xinzhuang crochet and Tibetan garments took place in Shanghai.
The garments, in earth tones and made from Tibetan fabrics, were decorated with crochet flowers in safranine, earth yellow and highland cattle white.
"Intangible culture inspires fashion designers, allowing trendy clothes to be unique and rich in culture," said Lin.
